Leaderboard

Laz, I agree with your comments right now and for some years to come, though I would expect the environmental footprint of EVs to come down as the technology improves. Right now, one of the most environmentally friendly vehicles is the Land Rover Defender: Bult since 1946, more than 50% are still on the road. They are of course very simple to maintain, and even the body panels simply bolt on and off. Yet they are exactly the kind of vehicle which may be banned from certain areas.

To be honest I cannot see much advantage to an electric car unless you own a power plant. I know someone who does and he had a Bedford CF chock full of batteries but that's another story.. I think the environmental benefits of EVs are shaky to say the least. I get that if cities were full of them and not hydrocarbon burning vehicles then a percentage of urban pollution would be moved elsewhere. But that's the thing, it just moves to somewhere else. A "Zero Emissions" car is actually a bit of an insult as it's just not true, the laws of thermodynamics say this. I don't know how long the drive-trains of EVs will last. Modern internal combustion powered cars are often uneconomical to repair due to relatively minor components and so are scrapped despite being generally sound. Labour is the major expense and until there are a lot of people all over the country competing to service EVs that will be an even bigger problem. I fear that the complex electronic control systems and components will economically write off many EVs much earlier in their lives than conventional cars. This bothers me a lot as I believe a car effectively gets more environmentally friendly the longer it lasts as the waste involved in scrapping it and making new replacements is avoided. I think dust to dust emissions are the only way to gauge how environmentally friendly a car really is. Ones that are uneconomical to repair before the emissions they have produced in their lifetimes exceed those produced manufacturing a replacement one are all too common and it's not right. The car industry can bang on about saving the planet all they like but sales and profit will always come first, if it didn't then cars would be made to be genuinely repairable not throwaway.

Hi Gary, Thanks for the rust spots heads up...........you'll have to excuse me now whilst I go and load both barells......😠😣😝